


Dark Eyes

by Nabielka



Category: Sibirskiy tsiryulnik | The Barber of Siberia (1998)
Genre: M/M, Mentions of Tolstoi/Jane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 13:46:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11209320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nabielka/pseuds/Nabielka
Summary: After the ball, Polievsky and Tolstoi take a moment alone.





	Dark Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alley_Skywalker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alley_Skywalker/gifts).



“You’ve never minded my talking before.” 

How many times had they come back like this, on a sleigh with the others, on foot sometimes in the warmer months, usually with one of them stumbling, having been relieved of his sobriety some merry hours before? It was mostly Tolstoi, whom the Academy might endeavour to make a capable soldier, but who had no hopes of becoming a capable drinker. He would make his way back half-held up by Polievsky, an arm around his shoulders, some words exchanged quietly between them that the others could not hear.

There was little of that mirth now. His voice was sharp. “That was different.” 

“Come,” he said, and changed his grip on Andrei’s arm. “You’ve heard me talk in much greater detail of many a woman, and far more intimately than that. You remember Tanya and Nadya and Mashka? You didn’t mind doing more than checking for corsets. In fact…” he let his hand drift lower, a caress down Andrei’s side. His eyes dropped to follow, to Andrei’s mouth, down his uniform. 

Andrei caught his wrist. “You shouldn’t talk of her in that way. She’s beautiful and kind, and she deserves better than your gossip.” 

Even talking of her, his face had softened. His eyes, though still on Polievsky, seemed to be looking through him. His grip had changed, grown soft: he would not have grasped her so. 

Even seeing that look on his face roused the blood. He had seen how Andrei looked at her: on the train, when she had come to return his photograph, at the ball, each time harder to take. Andrei, whose face was so expressive, whose eyes shone with laughter, who had looked at Polievsky with affection so many times, had never looked at him thus. 

But it was foolish to think that way. He had closed the compartment door before Tolstoi; if the looks he yearned for were to be directed at another, he had only himself to blame. 

Still, if he couldn’t have him, it was at least something to keep his attention still. “A lady so complete in virtues! Tolstoi, you know nothing about her.”

 _You know me_ , he wanted to say, but it made no difference. Andrei loved more what little he had seen of Jane than all that he had learned of Polievsky since they had first come to the Academy. 

Andrei’s mouth was a thin line. “I see you are determined not to understand. Good night, Count.” The title falling from his mouth was like a blow. He turned to leave.

But Polievsky was faster. At fencing, at the manoeuvres, even, miserably, at falling apart under Tolstoi’s touch. As Andrei made to pull away, he managed to catch his wrist. 

Andrei stopped in place. He said, keeping his voice low, though they could not be so easily overheard here, “You should be happy; I’m going to bed. You won’t have to wait long before you can tell it all as you planned.” 

“Andrei, please,” said Polievsky, and knew not what he asked for. Stay? It would do little good. Andrei seemed not in the mood for conversation, or indeed anything else. His own pride would not let him force an apology past his lips: what had he said that Tolstoi could object to? 

It was half desperation that had him raising the other hand to Andrei’s collar, curling his fingers under the bright border of his uniform. His skin was warm even through the gloves. 

It felt perverse to touch him like this. When they practiced dancing, it was always barehanded, and certainly gloves had no place in the dark corners they found for themselves. And yet - he had danced with Karenina in his gloves, as was proper, he had touched her, and wasn’t that what Tolstoi wanted? To have anything of her he could get? 

Andrei’s eyes had been fixed on them, dancing. Andrei on his knees, his head turned towards them as though there was no other pair in the ballroom. He wanted Andrei’s eyes on him still.

Any moment now Andrei was going to push him off and turn away. 

He trailed his fingers over Andrei’s skin, felt him shudder. His words as they came were not considered. “Do you think she’d touch you like this?” 

Andrei’s eyes went wide. Well, he was looking at him now. 

He pressed forward. “If you could have taken her out from the ball and into a quiet room – as we have found here – what would you want, hmm?”

His grip around Andrei’s wrist loosened, his thumb brushing over his pulse, pushing up the cuff. The skin there was a little lighter, the veins visible. On an impulse, he pulled their hands up a little and bent his head. 

Andrei’s hand twitched at the touch of his lips. When Polievsky looked up again, a few strands of hair had fallen across his forehead. 

He always had to arrange it afterwards. Thick and so soft in Polievsky’s hands, it was inevitable that they should wander up sooner or later. Even so, it did little good, for Andrei could little more keep still asleep than he could awake, and in the morning his hair was not presentable. 

The sight of him tugged at the heart. They had not the luxury of lazy mornings in the dormitory, still less any prospect of sharing one. 

Andrei said, half-choked, “Are you playing my role or hers?”

He let Andrei’s hand fall. 

She had been looking at him too. She had been good at it; Polievsky would have bet three hours of playing the stork that the general had not noticed, but then the general had not his awareness, always, of how Tolstoi’s presence lit up a room. 

“Whatever you like,” he said and cringed at how earnest it sounded. Andrei was not given to unkindness, but he could not soften the blow to nothing. 

If he could keep just this, being able to sneak off with him into an empty room and press him against a wall there, feel those smiling lips against his own, he could be contented, though Andrei’s gaze followed another. 

He put his hand on Andrei’s waist, over the band of his trousers, and pulled him close. Andrei came, unresisting, his hands rising to touch Polievsky. He had taken his own gloves off with his overcoat, but his touch burned through Polievsky’s clothing like a brand. 

“You can’t take her to bed, a lady like that,” he said, bending his mouth over Andrei’s neck. “But then we don’t have a bed either.” He slid his hand under Andrei’s trousers, encountered soft skin and then the band of his undergarments. 

Andrei’s hand came down to stop him. 

He looked up at Andrei’s touch, feeling irritation course through him. It was bad enough not to have Andrei for his own – that had been inevitable – but did Andrei no longer even want this, these moments they could snatch in private from the world? 

But Andrei was smiling wide, and his touch on Polievsky’s hand wasn’t holding him in place, but only tugging down the gloves. 

“Someone might wonder, cleaning these,” he said, lifting Polievsky’s hand for ease of access. “Certainly our Duniasha wouldn’t be too pleased.” He reached for the other. “In any case, I don't care for artifice. It is better you be as you are.”

His head was bent; he could not have seen how Polievsky’s cheeks burned, half in humiliation and half in joy. But his smiling mouth opened for his kiss readily enough.


End file.
